Depending on what you may have read or heard this offseason leading up to the kickoff of the 2025 college football season, the expectations for Oklahoma football Team 131 in the new season range anywhere from six to 10 wins.
One of the things the ESPN staff likes to do every year in recent times is rank all FBS teams ( 1-136) and group them in tiers, like "Who needs a quarterback anyway" and "At the doorstep knocking on the door."
There are quite a few college football experts around the country who have high expectations for the Sooners this season, but those are largely based on offseason hype and what has been gleaned from what's on paper. Until the games begin, though, there is still a cloud of uncertainty hanging over Brent Venables' fourth season of OU football, which gets under way on Aug. 30 against Illinois State.
With this as backdrop, I was curious to see where the college football staff at ESPN placed the Sooners in its 1-134 ranking and in what grouping. ESPN had Oklahoma in Tier 3 behind at least 11 other teams in a grouping of six teams (all from the SEC) under the heading: "Someone in the SEC has to lose games, too."
Oklahoma part of SEC Royal Rumble
With Texas, Georgia, Alabama and LSU all ranked ahead of OU and the five other SEC teams in Tier 3 and expected to be the power four in the conference, that left the Sooners, Florida, Ole Miss, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas A&M to battle it out among themselves and, in the process, take vital wins from one another.
ESPN's David Hale noted that all 16 SEC teams rank among the 20 hardest schedules in the country this season. Seven of Oklahoma's 12 regular-season opponents were ranked in the preseason coaches poll that came out earlier this week.
"The SEC is designed to eat itself, which is one of the reasons it has pushed so hard for increased playoff access," Hale wrote.
A year ago, coming off a 10-3 year in its final season in the Big 12, Oklahoma was included among six teams in Tier 4 of ESPN's preseason ranking (three from the SEC and three from the Big 12) with the category heading: "A playoff berth or 7-5 are equally possible." Unfortunately, we all know how that turned out.
Hopefully, the Sooners live up to all the preseason expectations in 2025 and get a few more of those dog-eat-dog wins that they were unable to last fall in their inaugural season in the almighty SEC.
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